It’s time for a little pep talk: I’ve been noticing some people a little down at the mouth over the Democrats’ poor prospects for taking control of the Senate next week. While, yes, that does suck, since controlling the Senate would be important for bringing the White House’s judicial and executive appointment powers to a standstill — and it’s disappointing to see the paths to a 51st Senate seat slipping away, since a month ago it looked like they could actually do it (most likely by way of winning in Tennessee) — please take a moment to focus on literally everything else that’s about to happen on Election Day.
For one thing, as you’re probably aware, Democratic control of the House — which would stop all Republican legislative initiatives and give them potentially sweeping investigative powers — appears imminent. It’s not a done deal (and please don’t treat it like it is), but most prognosticators have stopped thinking about a House takeover as an “if” and more as a question of how large the gain will be.
Thirty to forty seats changing hands in the House would be very nice, of course, but it’s still not that unusual for a midterm wave election. But one other area you might be less aware of (and that’s more the fault of the dominant Beltway media than anything, whose interest tends to stop and start with only the federal government) is the realm of gubernatorial elections, where even bigger things may be in store; the Democrats are poised for a truly historic haul. Today, the Democrats are, in our polling averages on track to pick up ten state houses. That would be the second largest number of gubernatorial flips in any election in the post-World War II era (behind only 1994, where the Republicans turned 11 seats).
Partly, that’s important because of policy implications; Democratic governors in a number of these states, for instance, might finally mean Medicaid expansion, where Republican governors have previously stood in the way. It can mean a pathway toward voting rights changes, like felon re-enfranchisement and automatic voter registration, in a number of states where Republicans maintain power partly through big obstacles to voting. Maybe most significantly (even for people who always think federal government-first), with redistricting coming up in 2022, Democratic governors can help lock in 2018’s Democratic House gains, by signing off on Democratic-drawn maps in states with Democratic legislatures, or forcing compromise or court-drawn maps (instead of crazy gerrymanders) in states with Republican legislatures. In Joe Biden’s immortal words, it’s a big fucking deal!
When we checked last week, the Democrats were on track to flip seven gubernatorial seats, but there were four different races that were tied. Three of those tied races have now moved into the Democratic column: in each case only barely, by one point, but new polls have, in each case, moved them far enough to tip them in the blue column. And these are three seats that are probably high on your wish list: one is Kansas, with its Republican nominee Kris Kobach, whose name has become virtually synonymous with voter suppression.
Another is Georgia, where Democratic nominee Stacey Abrams would be not only the nation’s first African American woman governor but also would bring progressive governance to a rapidly-growing state. And while Ohio doesn’t quite have as exciting a protagonist as Georgia or as repellent an antagonist as Kansas, it does feature former Consumer Financial Protection Bureau leader Richard Cordray, who’ll be not only a solid governor but a bulwark against a repeat of Ohio’s possibly-worst-in-the-nation House gerrymander.
Here’s this week’s “totem pole”:
STATE |
D CAND. |
D AVG. |
R CAND. |
R AVG. |
DIFF. |
FLIP? |
ILLINOIS |
Pritzker |
48 |
Rauner (inc.) |
30 |
+18 |
D FLIP |
COLORADO |
Polis |
50 |
Stapleton |
38 |
+12 |
|
RHODE ISLAND |
Raimondo (inc.) |
43 |
Fung |
33 |
+10 |
|
MICHIGAN |
Whitmer |
47 |
Schuette |
38 |
+9 |
D FLIP |
NEW MEXICO |
Lujan Grisham |
51 |
Pearce |
42 |
+9 |
D FLIP |
MAINE |
Mills |
48 |
Moody |
40 |
+8 |
D FLIP |
MINNESOTA |
Walz |
46 |
Johnson |
40 |
+6 |
|
CONNECTICUT |
Lamont |
45 |
Stefanowski |
39 |
+6 |
|
OREGON |
Brown (inc.) |
45 |
Buehler |
40 |
+5 |
|
FLORIDA |
Gillum |
48 |
De Santis |
44 |
+4 |
D FLIP |
IOWA |
Hubbell |
39 |
Reynolds (inc.) |
36 |
+3 |
D FLIP |
WISCONSIN |
Evers |
47 |
Walker (inc.) |
46 |
+1 |
D FLIP |
GEORGIA |
Abrams |
47 |
Kemp |
46 |
+1 |
D FLIP |
KANSAS |
Kelly |
42 |
Kobach |
41 |
+1 |
D FLIP |
OHIO |
Cordray |
42 |
De Wine |
41 |
+1 |
D FLIP |
SOUTH DAKOTA |
Sutton |
44 |
Noem |
44 |
0 |
|
NEVADA |
Sisolak |
43 |
Laxalt |
44 |
-1 |
|
ALASKA |
Begich |
44 |
Dunleavy |
47 |
-3 |
|
OKLAHOMA |
Edmondson |
42 |
Stitt |
47 |
-5 |
|
NEW HAMPSHIRE |
Kelly |
40 |
Sununu (inc.) |
49 |
-9 |
|
ARIZONA |
Garcia |
40 |
Ducey (inc.) |
52 |
-12 |
|
MARYLAND |
Jealous |
35 |
Hogan (inc.) |
51 |
-16 |
|
SOUTH CAROLINA |
Smith |
34 |
McMaster (inc.) |
55 |
-21 |
|
The leads in those three states might be fragile, though. In each case, only one poll was responsible for putting them over the top. (In Georgia, it was an Opinion Savvy poll giving Abrams a 48-47 lead. In Kansas, an Ipsos poll gave Laura Kelly a 43-41 lead. And in Ohio, it was an Emerson poll giving Cordray a 49-46 lead.) This means that one bad poll in any of those races in the next week could just as easily push them slightly back under water.
The biggest gainer, by contrast, was Alaska. (In fact, it’s hard to calculate a specific number, since last week we had no data from Alaska at all, in the wake of the race being scrambled by incumbent independent governor Bill Walker suspending his campaign. Prior to the dropout, Democratic ex-Senator Mark Begich was trailing Republican nominee Mike Dunleavy by around 20 points, with Walker taking up most of the balance.) But this week, we received a new survey from Alaska Survey Research finding Begich trailing Dunleavy by only a 43-42 margin, as most of Walker’s votes have, as expected, moved over to Begich.
We’ve also added a few older polls to the Alaska trendline that had alternative questions about a simple Begich/Dunleavy head-to-head, taken back in the period when Walker was still in the race. Those hypotheticals didn’t go as well for Begich as with the newest poll, so they put a little more downward pressure on Begich’s numbers, working out to a 47-44 advantage for Dunleavy in our polling average. Alaska, as I’ve mentioned before, is an extremely difficult state to poll (especially its Alaskan Native population, many of whom live far off the telecommunication grid), and that’s probably the only poll we’re going to get of the race, so we’re still flying pretty blind here.
Nevada’s gubernatorial race also improved considerably for the Democratic nominee, Clark County Commissioner Steve Sisolak; he was bolstered by an SSRS poll for CNN that gave him a 46-45 edge over Republican Adam Laxalt. That by itself wasn’t quite enough to move the polling average in his favor; he still trails Laxalt 44-43 overall, after a 45-41 deficit at this point last week. But the presence of the Nevada and Alaska races just hanging around the cusp (along with the precisely-tied South Dakota race) just means even more Democratic upside: those are alternative pickups if, for instance, Georgia or Kansas fall through … or, if all goes well, they could help push the total gains beyond even 10.